Hutchison’s Achieve Act is unlikely to pass during the lame duck session, says Sen. John Cornyn

While Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison has been working hard to promote her last bill, the “Achieve Act”, Sen. John Cornyn believes that the bill will not pass during the lame duck session.

The Achieve Act was introduced by Hutchison and Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl yesterday and is designed to provide legal standing, but not citizenship, for young illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. by their parents.

Besides holding the press conference to introduce the bill, Hutchison has also appeared on America’s Newsroom on Fox News and is set to be featured on tonight’s PBS Newshour to discuss the immigration reform bill.

During a press conference call this afternoon, he said that any movement on the bill is “probably more than one can hope for” during the lame duck session, but applauded Hutchison for making the proposal. When pushed on whether he supports the bill, Cornyn said, “When it comes to trying to be a part of solution, you can count me in, but I think there is more that we need to do than deal with the Dream Act.”

He went on to say that while he and the nation are sympathetic and support the DREAMers, there is a lot more that needs fixing when it comes to immigration.

“I am not going to support just a narrow portion of an immigration reform, I support more broader approach that would encompass border security, guest worker program, work site enforcement, but at the same time I can applaud her for making the first step in that direction. But we all know nothing is going to happen between now and the end of the year. But I think it’s a good first step.”

“I don’t want somebody from Vermont, Iowa, or anywhere else for that matter telling us in Texas how to deal with something that we understand better than, I think, most. So I think that it’s a great opportunity for us to do so,” he told the reporters on the call.

Unfortunately, he predicts some obstacles in their way, specifically those in the shape of Democrats. Democrats have no motivation to contribute to a solution on immigration since they can continue to use the issue “to bludgeon Republicans with,” said Cornyn.

“Like everything else up here, it takes more than one party, particularly if you are in minority like I am, to make things happen,” he said on the call.

Cornyn did throw his support behind one immigration reform bill this afternoon, that of Rep. Lamar Smith’s legislation designed to increase visas for high-skilled immigrants with advanced science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) degrees. Cornyn said he tried to bring up the topic of the bill in the Senate but has met with resistance.

“I’ve actually broached the issue this morning, with Senator [Chuck] Schumer, who is a chairman of the Immigration subcommittee of the Judiciary committee and I asked him – I said- is this something we can work on together? And he basically said it’s a non-started. That’s pretty disappointing. And I hope that’s not the final word. I am going to continue to plow ahead on that and other immigration issues because I think [there’s] a lot of people suffering from a broken immigration system and our country is really suffering a brain drain from some of the best and brightest minds that we could use right here at home to create jobs and grow economy here rather than to ship them overseas.”

According to the White House Office of Management and Budget, the Democratic opposition to the STEM bill is rooted in the fact that the legislation eliminates “the long-standing Diversity Visa program that makes immigrant visas available to certain individuals from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States.”

The White House press release went on to say that the administration remains optimistic that Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, is ready for a serious debate on immigration.